I'll Keep Holding On
by mg78
Summary: This is an AU story that takes place some 16 years before Jessie and Katie first met on the TV show.


**I'll Keep Holding On**

**By mg78**

**DISCLAIMER - **The characters of Jessie Sammler and Katie Singer are the property of the creators of Once and Again and ABC, though if Evan Rachel Wood ever becomes available on the market then expect me to be the first in line ;) The characters of Bo and Kim are the property of the creators of the movie "You Are Not Alone." However the characters of Mr. Worthington, Steve, and Rekha Kumar are considered to be "public domain." Meaning you can use them if you want but I created them, thus I own them.

**This is my first ever Jessie-Katie story, written down at least. This is an AU story that takes place some 16 years before Jessie and Katie first met on the TV show, it's more of a reflective story from Katie's POV. This story was strongly influenced by Simply Red's soul classic "Holding Back The Years." Yes, I'm very much into 80s (and 70s) music. I'm not much of a writer, I'm actually more of a day-dreamer than a writer, but I had to put down at least one of my stories of Jessie and Katie that's in my head. **

**Rating - PG, probably PG-13 since there's some swearing and there's a little bit of 'adult situation' in this story.**

Somewhere in the spring of 1986:

It was 11:27 AM on a partial cloudy Friday here in Birmingham New Street Station. I was waiting for a train to Manchester at 11:40 and it seems forever to me that the train will come. As I wait for the train to come I listened to a few teens not too far from me talking about the latest fashion and music acts, kind of reminds me of I how I was a few years back. All I had with me for the trip was my purse and my suitcase.

"All Aboard!"

Finally around 11:30 AM the train comes. I went inside one of the cars, put my suitcase away and sat down in an unoccupied area. As I sat down and wait for the train to start moving, I was looking around my area. All I see was nothing but the stiff, stone cold faces of British people. I kept on asking myself how a Yankee like me could live in a stoic, reserved area like England, but yet here I am...

Then finally the doors were shut and the train starts the journey. The trip will last for two hours and I knew if I don't find something to occupy myself during the ride I was going to be bored to death looking at those cold English faces.

So I grab my Sony Walkman from my purse and put in my American Rock Mix cassette tape. Just listening to groups like Toto, Ambrosia, Boston, Chicago and Doobie Brothers brings my soul back to the land I still call home: The United States of America.

I had to take this trip because my heart made it feel necessary to take this trip. There's a certain someone in my life that, no matter how hard I try, still holds a place in my heart. This is a risky trip because she doesn't even know that I'm coming, I want to surprise her.

As 15 minutes passed by the tape stopped playing. So I opened my Walkman and discovered that the tape has popped. Damn, what is there to do for the next hour and 45 minutes? I wish they would come out with a portable CD player. I don't care how expensive it will be, I will buy it just so I don't have to deal with this mess. It saves me buying cassette tapes consistently, this is my third tape I popped in a month! So I started to look in my purse to see if there are any other cassette tapes. After going through all the make-up, coupons, gum, and lip baum in my purse I finally found one.

"Oh, it's Simply Red's _The Picture Book_, I guess it will do."

I had just bought that tape two days ago. So I put the tape in my Walkman and started to listen. The first song I heard was their latest hit "Holding Back The Years."

When started listening to Mick Hucknall's smooth voice singing "Holding back the tears. There's nothing here has grown." I couldn't hold back my own tears. I felt like that song threw me back to those days when I was in secondary school (that's High School for us Americans) back eight years ago. It was there that I met the girl that would etch a permanent mark in my heart forever.

I remember the day that I first met her, it seems like it was yesterday. I was attending a boarding school near London. My parents sent me there because basically they didn't know what to do with me. I have two older brothers who were more like what they wanted them to be. I was never that great with logic like my first brother who was an Electrical Engineer, nor was I ever good with money like my second brother who was an Accountant. I was more spiritual, care-free and artsy than my brothers.

I was sixteen at the time and had already been at the school for 2 years. I had just broken up with my girlfriend a few weeks back. We kept our relationship in the closet since people in the school aren't thrilled about gays. I constantly heared many gay and lesbian jokes in school and I got very offended by it but I felt like there wasn't much I can do about it. It hurts me a lot to dump her but I had to do it, for she was cheating on me with a guy from a nearby school. I though I would never get over her and that I would never find someone as special as she was but I was wrong...

It was basically the third week of school and I was running late for my Math class, not that I was thrilled to get there but Mr. Worthington warned me if I was going to be late again there were going to be disciplinary actions against me. As I finally got into class I quickly sat down and pulled out my math book, luckily for me I was on time.

Mr. Worthington was doing his usual boring talk when suddenly a beautiful blond came in the class. She stopped to talk to Mr. Worthington quickly and he told her where to sit. She ended up sitting in the desk to the left of me. That's when I got my first true glance of her, and with that look she took my breath away. At the same time she looked at me with the same look, it was like we caught each other's eye for a minute. I felt like it was love at first sight.

While the teacher was talking she introduce herself to me:

"Hi, My name is Jessica, but people call me Jessie."

"My name is Katherine, but people call me Katie, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too Katie."

I knew immediately when she spoke to me that her accent was American, and that made my attraction to her much, much stronger. I just about had it with these English tarts so meeting an American was a blessing to me.

After class she came up to me and asked me "Hey I'm a little behind, can I get the assignments I need to make up from you?" I was very hesitant at first because I was never good at keeping up with my math assignments but yet I wanted to see her again, so I had to think fast:

"How about if you come over to my dorm I can give it to you there?"

"Cool, Thanks!"

Whew, now I have to go around and find out what the past assignments were...

Thanks in part that I'm a popular girl in school and that I knew a lot of people in school, I didn't have much trouble getting the past assignments from other people. When she came into my dorm she told me that she is originally from the Chicago area, just like me, and that her father got married to a British woman and now they moved here with her brother. She commutes to school so she doesn't live in a dorm like I do. While in my dorm we talked about many things, like movies, clothes, music, girl's stuff, basketball and baseball since I missed those sports so much, they're not very popular here in England.

Whenever she talk about boys, it's usually very short like "yeah he's cute", but if they have a girlfriend she would go on about how nice her clothes look or how good her hair look or how nice her perfume smells. Due to the fact that she gets more excited when she's talking about girls than she does about boys, I could tell that she prefers girls a lot more than boys. It also confirmed that those looks we gave to each other in Math class were for real. Then the next thing I ask her was "Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow?" She looked at me with excitement and said "Yeah, that's solid." Remember now this is the late 70s.

After her parents picked her up from my dorm, my heart began to spin like crazy. My mind was in the clouds for the whole day thinking about Jessie and I couldn't get any homework done on that day. The next day at school was like a blur to me, I was so much in my fantasy world with Jessie that if the teachers screamed in my ears I still wouldn't hear them.

After school was finally over, we met up to decide what movie we should see, Jessie saw a listing for a movie called _You Are Not Alone. _

"It looks like interesting title, what do you think?"

"Hmm, why not?"

We would later found out that the movie was a Danish coming-out gay movie and I am glad that we saw it, it makes me feel better that we're not the only weirdos in this world. While we were watching the movie, I don't know what made me do it but I smoothly put my right hand on top of her left hand, she look back at me with a smile and then she gently turn her left hand around and held my hand.

After the movie finished we walked back to the dorm but we weren't holding hand since we didn't know if people would be looking. I was told by her parents to call them as soon as we got back to my dorm. However as soon as we got to my dorm we started talking.

"I had really good night Katie."

"So did I Jessie, do you mind staying for a little while?"

With that she showed that beautiful smile of hers that makes my heart skipped a beat, then she said "Of course! I was hoping that you wouldn't send me to the wardens (her parents) immediately!"

We both laughed for a short while then I responded with "Solid!"

As we enter in my dorm, I put on Gino Vannelli's _Brother To Brother _album on the turntable and position the needle on the groove to the song "I Just Wanna Stop." At first we were doing nothing more than small chat, nothing really interesting until she brought up the holding hands incident.

"What made you want to hold my hands during the movie?"

"I don't know really, I guess it was the love scenes between the two boys Bo and Kim that somehow affected me. It was beautiful the way they expressed their feelings for each other regardless of whether people considered it to be wrong or right, the way I have feeling for you."

Jessie was startled a little bit from what I said but she chucked a bit and with those crystal clear blue eyes she looked at me and said "Yes, I have strong feelings for you too."

After she declared her feelings for me we just look at each other for a while and then we slowly move our head closer to each other in preparing for a long, deep, and blissful kiss. When we started to kiss, those soft moist lips of hers somehow took me to another world, a world with only me and her on it, and neither one of us wanted to leave it anytime soon.

Unfortunately we were brought back to this earth thanks to a phone ring, I didn't realize it but both of our shirts were taken off, leaving with nothing but our bras on. I answered the phone, it was her parents wondering where their daughter was and why we didn't call. They ruined the moment but I guess it was for the better since we probably would have done something we would regret in the future, considering that we were going way too fast.

The next few months were the happiest moments of my life. It seemed like one long holiday for me. We went to various trips around the UK, we went to many areas of London that I usually don't go to like Soho, Islington and Kensington Gardens. Heck, even going to the museums and plays with here were fun, usually I wouldn't even dare go to them by myself. What I didn't notice was that I was spending less time with my friends and they were suspecting something between me and Jessie and the rumors about me and Jessie began to circulate.

We were a couple who kept it a secret, although on occasions when no one was around we held hands and kissed each other. I really wanted to tell the whole world how much I love her but I knew better. We did a lot of kissing in the dorm but nothing else until my birthday came five months after our first kiss.

That's another event I still remember like yesterday. We celebrated my birthday with a small chocolate cupcake and a candle on top. It wasn't much but I was still happy for I knew she didn't have much money to spend. Hell anything was better than what my parents gave me, they didn't bother to send me a birthday card nor did I get a "Happy Birthday" call until 3 days after my birthday!

Anyway after I blew out the candle and then she said to me:

"So now Ms. Singer, what is your birthday wish?"

"Hmm, I wish to be with you forever."

She looked at me and tears began to flow from her eyes, she hugged me and told me softly in my ears "I want to be with you forever too."

We embraced like that for a few seconds until she remembered something:

"Oh I nearly forgot to give you your gift, let me get it now."

She went into her coat pocket and pulled out a small gift-wrapped box. I opened the box and in it I saw a small silver ring, there was something written on it and it said "Always In My Heart." Little did I know that those words would haunt me even to this moment. I couldn't help but shed a tear when I saw the ring. It was wonderful how she showed her love for me and I put it on immediately. I gave her a hug and then she told me something else...

"I'm glad that you like the ring a lot but I got one more gift to give you."

"What's that?"

"Myself"

I was shocked for a bit, but the shock ended when she started to kiss me slowly and softly, then the kisses became faster and more passionate. Before we knew it we were on the bed naked, making love to each other. There are no words in any language to describe the feelings and joys that I felt in those passionate twilight hours with her. I had sex before but it was never like this, I didn't want that night to end.

Little did we know it but it was the beginning of the end for us, we were still together for one more month but we started to get careless with ourselves. We would make out in areas that we shouldn't be like in public bathrooms and dressing rooms, I guess we did it because it added more excitement to our relationship, that we are doing something the status quo considered "taboo" out in the public more or less. However it was one of our escapades that would get us in trouble.

We were in the janitor's closet passionately kissing each other during lunchtime. We knew the janitor would be in the cafeteria during that time so we knew he wouldn't come in here. It just happens that he left something in the closet so he opened the closet's door and saw us kissing each other. We were embarrassed, shocked, and scared at the same time. He just looked at us and then laughed at us saying:

"You two are some kinky little girls."

We started to cry like crazy and begged for his mercy not to tell anyone about us or what he just saw. He told us he wouldn't tell anyone else, but that was a lie. In just two days the entire school knew about us. We were the laughing stock of the school, the butt of everyone's homophobic joke. Jessie got it worse since she just got her hair cut short and since she also goes by a boy's name people started to call her "Little Boy Jessie." However the worse was yet to come...

Jessie's parents found out and they blamed me for making her gay. Then my parents called me and told me they were disappointed at me then they told me that after secondary school, I was on my own. I can't believe my parents would disown me like that, but then again they never cared for me in the first place. They immediately sent Jessie back to Chicago to stay with her real mother. They also make her see a shrink to treat her for her "homosexuality." It was hard to keep in contact with her since it seems that her mother didn't want me to talk to her, and the school somehow blocks her number from my phone.

We knew that communicating by mail wouldn't work because they would be intercepted, so we ended up calling each other through the pay phones for the next six months. However with each month it got harder and harder to keep in contact with her, so finally after six months I called her for the last time and told her that we should break up. She didn't want to at first but eventually she understood the situation. We both cried at the end of the conversation and I wouldn't hear from her since.

I was constantly teased and ridiculed by everyone in the school, the teachers and headmaster didn't do anything about it so I left the school. For the next year I stayed in a house for gay and lesbian teens and I worked at various places doing various menial jobs. It was rough for me during that year, however I was able to save up some money to go to college in London, but instead I heard that City of Birmingham Polytechnic had an excellent art department and that's where I ended up going.

I studied Theatre, Performance and Event Design over there part-time while working as a waitress in a restaurant full-time. I eventually got a job at a local theatre/ballroom in Birmingham to make the settings for the stage and due to my extroverted and care-free personality they got me to act on small roles for some of the plays. I really enjoy acting and I'm planning to study acting sometime this year.

During my times in the house and college I had a few lovers of my own. Usually they remind me one way or another of Jessie, whether it's by their looks or their personality. However as hard as I tried, none of them ever capture my heart like Jessie did, although one came very close...

About six years ago I had an instructor name Rekha Kumar for my Impressionism Art History class, she was a very beautiful British-Asian Indian woman and there was a 12 year difference between us but that didn't matter much to us. I thought I found someone who would made me forget about Jessie, but instead it did the exact opposite. Although her skin is like caramel brown, and her eyes and hair are dark brown, her facial features are almost the same as Jessie's. Plus her personality was almost exactly like Jessie's and her voice sounded like what Jessie would sound like if she grew up in East London.

We were together for two years until she found her dream job in Australia, it was perfect since we both can start a new life down there. I was going to meet her after I finish the semester, but then tragedy struck. The plane she was flying on crashed in the middle of the Indian Ocean and there were no survivors. To be honest with you, I still cry when I think about her but it also made more determined to find Jessie and to be with her before it was too late.

It was hard to locate Jessie since I lost contact with most of the people I knew in Chicago. The ones that I still kept in contact with didn't even know who she was, I couldn't even find out what college she was attending. However just last year when I was talking on the phone to my college friend Steve, I told him about Jessie. Right now Steve lives in Manchester as an Art director for an office building. Now I had no problems telling Steve about my past relationships because Steve himself is gay. Steve told me that he knew Jessie because she was working for a non-for-profit organization in the same building.

When he told me that, my heart skipped a beat but however he followed it up with the fact that she is now married. He went on to tell me that she met a guy from Manchester when she was living in Chicago and after they got married they moved to Manchester so he can be with his family. That just shattered my heart into a thousand pieces. From that moment up to now, I don't have anybody new in my life. I had short flings but they went nowhere. I felt like a piece of my heart will forever be missing and I knew that Jessie was the one who held it.

However just two weeks ago Steve told me that she and her husband were getting separated and they were planning for a divorce. That was the news that I wanted to hear for so long. I then told Steve that I was coming to Manchester in two weeks and for him not to tell Jessie that I'm going to be at Manchester, I wanted it to be a surprise. So here I am now sitting in the train while my tape has finally ended.

The train finally stopped at Manchester Picadilly station. After stepping off the train I started to look for him. I told Steve the time to meet me before I left, but as wonderful as he is punctuality was never his strength. I was thinking to myself "Where's that silly ass Steve?" I started to look at the left but I didn't see him and then I started to look at the right, still didn't see him. Then as soon as I look straight forward I saw a beautiful blond woman a few feet away from me.

She had on a blue and white horizontally striped sweater, it can be cold in Manchester during the spring. The blue stripes on the sweater matched her eyes but the tight skirt she was wearing was a darker blue and her shoes matched her skirt. Her long blond frizzy hair was done in a way that it nearly made me melt. And those crystal blue eyes of hers still haven't lost its beauty. She looks at me and said:

"Sorry but Steve couldn't come, so I decided to pick you up."

With that she smiled then a tear started to come down her face. I came up to her and gave her one passionate hug. While we were hugging I told her that I miss her so much, she replied saying that she misses me too and that she always loved me. Then she faced her head towards my lips and we kissed. We didn't care if other people were looking at us, we held pieces of each other's hearts for a long time and with that kiss those pieces were reconnected once again. With her holding me next to her I felt like I have finally returned home. This is where I belong, right between her arms.

- THE END -


End file.
